Our Money

My money, our money?

The elderly women sits half propped upon the rickety bead frame as she looks uncomprehendingly at her daughter through dementia soaked eyes.  The room is littered with medical equipment: a walker, a bedside commode, some type of hand grabbing doohickey that had long ago been discarded in a pile of other government funded paraphernalia.

You know Sarah goes to college this year?

A young man, humbling, ducks between mother and daughter.  Eyes averted, he removes the untouched tray from the elderly women’s lap and replaces the sheets over her wasting torso.  The tray consists of finger foods without utensils.  No fork, and certainly no knife. An unopened can of Ensure adorns the periphery,

Neither of the two women acknowledges the man’s presence as he hurries out of the room with the tray and returns with a small paper cup full of pills.

Missus, it’s time for your afternoon pills.

The frail women focuses her eyes on the apologetic figure, and then opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out.  She waits to receive the pills.  A child waiting for mom to deliver the cherry flavored elixir that will make the fever go away.  But there is no fever.  No cheery elixir.  The large one tastes bitter while the small one feels rough on the edges.  First, she tries to chew the tablets and then she sits calmly with a mouth full of pills with no attempt to swallow.

The daughter is now rustling through papers.  She has a typewritten document which she gingerly holds in front of her, attempting not to crease the precious words elegantly laid out on the page.  She thumbs the pen and looks expectantly at her mother who is still trying to remember what’s causing the bitter taste in her mouth.  The mother spits the pills out onto the raggedy bib hanging from her neck.

Your Money, Our Money

The lawyer says that all you have to do is sign here!

The patient grimaces and then looks around the bedroom.  The surroundings should be familiar after decades. She looks lost, confused.

Dear, when did you bring me to this hospital?

She is troubled, but her addled brain has not the capacity to reason why.  There is a nagging anxiety which wends its way through her disjointed neurons and plops into a disheveled central processor.  It spits out aberrant data and the women screams out in pain.

There is no pain.  Just the feeling that something is wrong.

You’ll really like the facility!  There are other people like you there.  And nurses all the time!

The silent man glides in unnoticed and dutifully removes the undigested pills from the bib and places them back in a paper cup that now adorns the bedside table.  He winces as he watches the scene play out in front of him.  His employment hangs on a precipice.

My Money

The lawyer says that Medicaid will take care of everything, and then you can pay for Sarah’s college.  And I can cut up the credit cards!

You want to pay for Sarah’s college, don’t you?  You always said it is our money!

Her voice rings with both hope and sorrow.  She fancies that this is some version of disclosure.  If she can convince herself that her mother understands, reasons that this is what she always wanted, then taking the money won’t feel so bad.

She tells herself that the state-run facility is adequate.  That her mother is so demented that she will never know the difference.  That the money might as well be used by people who will have their wits about them enough to enjoy it.

Her mother looks up uncomprehendingly as the daughter places the pen into her unpracticed fingers and gently guides her into signing on the dotted line.  The daughter then affixes the date in an altogether more legible nature on the adjacent line.

I think it is time for you to rest now, mom.

The daughter gathers the papers gingerly and places them in an envelope to be delivered immediately to the lawyer’s office.

The humble man in the corner looks down ashamedly as the daughter passes him on the way to the door.  She looks distractedly at his forehead, realizing for the first time that another human being has witnessed her depravity.

She avoids his eyes.

Adjust her comforter and make sure mom takes those pills.  We wouldn’t want her to get sick!

Feeling nauseous, he shrinks into the corner and whispers a response that the daughter would have to strain to hear.  No matter, she has already breezed through the exit and slammed the bedroom door behind her.

Yes, ma’am! 

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